Discussion
One of the effective ways of successfully executing a project is the implementation of the project management process. The concept of project management involves an array of methods that are dedicated towards bringing a sense of improvement for the project management process (Kerzner & Kerzner, 2017). There are several techniques of the project improvement processes. These processes can be either deep-seated or incremental, willing or top down, consolidated or divulged , discrete or continuous, processes oriented or top down. The methods of project management can be best described through the help of Project Management Book of Knowledge of PMBoK. The agile methods on the other hand provides an extensive framework of some of the methods that are based on a particular framework from the initiation to the execution of the project.
The chief purpose of this project report is to make a vivid comparative study between the processes and approaches discussed in PMBoK and the agile methods of the project management. The PM processes help the project managers to get an idea about how the project will be completed in due course of its tenure (Burke, 2013). Substantiating, this report discusses the crashing and the earned value management, strategies incorporated by the methods, practical implications with social and management considerations.
This section is entirely based upon the comparative study between the processes and approaches discussed in the Project Management Book of Knowledge with the methods of the Agile project management.
The project management book of knowledge is an excellent directory for the project managers who intends to deliver the project right on time with relative ease. The PMBoK outlines several processes that are required to be covered in completion of the project. These processes are a part of the traditional project management approach that is often termed as the Waterfall project management since the processes are iterative and all are needed for the full completion of the project (Nicholas & Steyn, 2017). In the traditional project management, there is top down approach of the project manager with each of the project groups working with respective processes. There are total of five processes that cover from the initiation to the closure of the project at a single go. These processes are useful for projects that are simple in nature and have a top down approach where no modifications are required in between the processes. These processes can be listed as the following:
Processes of Project Management Book of Knowledge
The process of initiating involves the processes that help in the facilitation of the formal authorisation to begin with a brand new project or the stage of the project. The processes related to initiation of the project often involves some phases that are beyond the scope of control of the project by the particular organisation or by the particular program or the portfolio processes that may disrupt the limits of the boundaries of the project for the pre inputs of the project (Heagney, 2016). In this process, the outline of the concerned project can easily be clarified by documenting the processes involving project selection.
The association of the project to the tactical plan of the organisation helps in the identification of the management responsibilities that are instilled within the organisation. Projects that are comprised of multiple phases, the initiating processes takes place according to the subsequent phases to validate the decisions and the assumptions made during the authentic Develop Project Scope Statement and Develop Project Charter. The preliminary explanation of the range of the project and the assets that the organisation is ready to act upon are brushed up during the course of this process (Holzmann, 2013).
The project management team is to plan and maintain the concerned project for the organisation uses the planning process along with the other internal processes and instructions. In the process of planning gathering of information from several sources takes place with each of the source having different levels of solidity and completeness. These constituent process also helps to identify, define and frame the range of the project, the costy of the project and schedule the activities of the project (Larson et al., 2014). With the generic flow of discovery of new information these processes aides the project by identifying or resolving the additional dependencies, risks, requirements, dependencies, opportunities, assumptions along with the several constraints.
A project is facilitated with multiple sub processes of the planning process. These processes are required to be identified by the project team and should be addressed accordingly during the entire planning process phase to decide the necessity of these processes along with their subject of deployment. The constituent processes includes the mounting plan for managing projects, planning the scope, outlining the scope, creation of WBS, defining activity, sequencing activity, estimating activity resource, estimating activity duration, scheduling development, approximating cost, accounting cost, planning quality, HR planning, planning interactions, planning risk management, identification of the risk, quantitative analysis of risk, qualitative analysis of risk, planning responses of the risks, purchases and acquisitions planning and contracting plan.
The process of Initiating
The execution processes are those processes that are used to successfully finish the work that is stated in the plan of Project Management to meet the necessities of the project. It is the duty of the project team to detect which of the practices of the executing phase are required for the concerned project. This process incurs the coordination of the processes and the resources along with the integration and performance of the activities of the project with reference to the project management plan (Fleming & Koppelman, 2016). The range stated in the project scope statement is talked in this process and the approved changes are also implemented in this process.
Variance in the generic execution is bound to require a replanning structure. The variances can be comprised of the durations of the activity, resource productivity and availability along with unprecedented risks. An analysis of these variances is required to be done even if these variances do not affect the project management plan. The constituent processes of management involved in the executing process include direct and manage project execution, performing of worth assurance, acquiring of the project team, development of the project team, info distribution, request of seller reactions and selection of sellers.
The process of monitoring and the controlling is the penultimate process of all the processes related to the project. It consists of those processes that are performed to have strict surveillance on the execution of the project so that possible problems can be detected right on time and the necessary actions could be taken to control the execution of the project (Walker, 2015). One of the main benefits of this project process is that the performance of the project can be observed and measured on a timely basis to identify the variances in the project management through this process.
There are several constituent processes under the monitoring and controlling constituent processes of the monitoring and the controlling process includes observing and governing of the project work, conjoined variation control, authentication of scope, controlling range, controlling agenda, controlling budget, controlling performance quality, handling the project team, recording performance, handling the stakeholders, monitoring and controlling risk along with contract management.
This is the last and final process of the entire project management. The processes that are included under this heading are used for successfully terminating the actions of a project or the project phase, passing the finished project to the clients or closing an invalid project (Harrison & Lock, 2017). The group in this process when finished authenticates whether the defined procedures are finalized within all other group processes to close the project or the project phase as the correct and the most authentic one and provides green signal for the project or the project phase to be approved as completed.
The process of Planning
The closing process is made with the composition of two subsequent processes. These two subsequent processes include the closing of the project along with the closure of the contract. The closing of the project is one of the processes that are required to conclude all the activities of the respective process groups to put an end to the project or the concerned project phase in a formal manner. Closure of the contract is one of the processes that are required for finalising each of the contract involving the steadfastness of any of the exposed items and terminating each contract that is relatable to the concerned project or the phase of the project.
In contrast to the processes discussed in the above sections of this report there are several highly engineered processes that might be necessarily termed as the Agile methods (Mahalakshmi & Sundararajan, 2013). These methods are less targeted towards definite steps to be followed in a process and are additionally focussed towards the managerial and the cultural context involving the processes. According to this analogy, it can also be deduced that the agile methods are adjustable rather than being analytical in nature and are more people centric rather than being process centric (Verma, Bansal & Pandey, 2014). Some of the methods of the methods of the Agile project management includes:
Scrum is one of those methods of the Agile project methods that has not developed fully to be termed as an Agile methodology. Instead of that, it can be termed as one of the innovative approaches to the Agile management with a consolidated focus on the project teams, snippets or sprints and daily face to face meetings (Despa, 2014). The scrum approach goes with placing the project team upfront and central section of the project. This project team is expected to become self managing and self organising. This approach is absolutely ideal for the highly skilled workforce but not so effective for the teams that are not that proficient (Mougouei, Sani & Almasi, 2013).
The snippets or the sprints works with a tenure of 30 days for each sprint. Sprints are sub parts of the project when a large and complex project is broken down into small fragments to work upon with daily stand-up meetings. This sprint approach is useful in promoting rapid iteration and development of the project (Newton, 2016). As the method is people oriented, the members of the project has a clear visibility of the project. The Scrum method is actually useful for the projects that has the feasibility of using highly experienced, disciplined and motivated project teams who are absolutely clear about the project objectives (Ozawa & Zhang, 2013).
The process of Executing
Kanban is another Agile project frame work that is completely based upon providing comprehensive solution to handling work in progress. Kanban is one of the Agile frameworks that is entirely triggered with the workflow and prioritizes the work in progress. It is due to this that the scope of the project is effectively matched to the capacity of the team working on the project (Stellman & Greene, 2014). The development process of this approach helps in providing more flexibility in the process of planning, faster turnaround, clear objectives and transparency as a whole. Unlike Scrum, there are no predefined sprints in this framework, which gives the provision of releasing bits of the project to work on them as required for further development.
Conclusion
From the areas discussed in the above sections of this report, it can be conclude that there is a high necessity of project managing from the initiation of the project to the successful termination of the project. However, there are various processes and methods in carrying out with the project. The project management approaches are mainly classified into two categories that are the traditional project management discussed in the Project Management Book of Knowledge and the Agile project management. The ideologies are different for the two types of approaches. The traditional project management processes are used for assisting the projects that are relatively simpler and easily manageable. Whereas, the Agile project management methods are suitable for the projects that are comparatively complex in nature.
This report briefly draws an effective contrast between the processes discussed in the Project Management Book of Knowledge to that of the methods of the Agile project management. The traditional project management or the waterfall project management comprises of a set of five processes including the process of initiating, the process of planning, the process of executing, the process of monitoring and controlling and the process of closing. On the other hand, the Agile Project Management is mainly based upon two main methods or rather Agile frameworks that are Scum and Kanban. This comparative report helps to build up an idea that regulates on the contrasting strategies of the project management.
References
Burke, R. (2013). Project management: planning and control techniques. New Jersey, USA.
Despa, M. L. (2014). Comparative study on software development methodologies. Database Systems Journal, 5(3), 37-56.
Fleming, Q. W., & Koppelman, J. M. (2016, December). Earned value project management. Project Management Institute.
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Nicholas, J. M., & Steyn, H. (2017). Project management for engineering, business and technology. Routledge.
Ozawa, H., & Zhang, L. (2013, August). Adapting agile methodology to overcome social differences in project members. In Agile Conference (AGILE), 2013 (pp. 82-87). IEEE.
Stellman, A., & Greene, J. (2014). Learning agile: Understanding scrum, XP, lean, and kanban. ” O’Reilly Media, Inc.”.
Verma, J., Bansal, S., & Pandey, H. (2014). Develop framework for selecting best software development methodology. International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research, 5(4).
Walker, A. (2015). Project management in construction. John Wiley & Sons.
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